As you walk into the National Portrait Gallery’s exhibition space the first image you see is iconic Australian musician Tina Arena, a place the subject says she belongs.

“I feel that that’s where the portrait deserves to be in the 50th year and I’m incredibly honoured to be in that position,” she told CD at a media preview at NPG on Friday.

The portrait celebrates the 50^th anniversary of her stellar career since we first saw Arena on our television screens as a contestant on Young Talent Time when she was eight.

She has since released 21 albums and received a slew of national and international awards.

When asked by CD how it felt to be featured in the gallery, as well as alongside other iconic Australian musicians including Jimmy and Jane Barnes and Nick Cave, she pointed out the lack of women being represented.

“Well, I’ve been doing it a loooooong time. I know Jimmy’s been around for a long time. Nick is extraordinary, but there’s not a lot of females on walls,” she said.

“So, I certainly hope that I’m one of several now that will be able to really feel great because that’s where they belong.”

Arena said Australia was a country that didn’t typically celebrate females, particularly in the music industry, a landscape she said hadn’t been kind to women.

“Then females are pitted against one another in a competitive fashion, which is extraordinarily boring and stifling humanly and spiritually,” she said.

“It’s not something I endorse. I’ve always loved women coming together.”

Arena said she hoped it was the beginning of many more women in different domains to come out, feel comfortable and not feel like they’re second class.

“And Australia ultimately understanding that it is an incredibly brilliant country with some unbelievable innovation on so many levels,” she said.

“Yet, we inherently have adopted this thing of ‘Oh, we’re not good enough’. Or ‘we must celebrate others as opposed to celebrating ourselves’.”

Arena said this cultural cringe was stifling.

“We are worthy, we do beautiful things, and I would just love to see that validated a little bit more as opposed to this tall poppy (syndrome) thing, which has been at the forefront of our cultural landscape for a long time,” she said.

“I am no shrinking violet, and I deserve to be treated no differently to any other female who has had success internationally or not.”

Arena said women in Australia should be celebrated.

“We should continue to support and love one another through it genuinely, not in a faux fashion,” she said.

“It’s really important to me because growing up and being pitted against other women of’ you’re not this’, ‘you’re not enough of that’, ‘why don’t you do this because somebody else is doing it’, ‘you need to do more of this’.

“No, I don’t. I just need to be me whatever the imperfections and all. Not perfect, but I’m just happy to be me and that’s what I want to impart.”

The photographer behind the two portraits is Georges Antoni.

“To be honest, I still can’t come to terms of the fact that I’ve personally got a portrait in here, but the fact that it’s Tina Arena as well,” he told media.

“It’s really probably a bit too much to kind of fathom at the moment. It just feels like an incredible privilege and an absolute gift. I feel very lucky to have this opportunity.”

Antoni said he decided to make the portrait black and white because doing it any other way would be a “disservice”.

“One of the things I felt is there is so much value in Tina’s personality and her feeling and what she delivered,” he told CD.

“That anything else that felt like even a marginal distraction wasa real disservice to the portrait but more than anything is a disservice to the amount of energy and the amount of feeling that Tina gave to the picture.

“So, I felt like colour was a distraction to the core of her soul of what she was giving us.”

NPG director Bree Pickering said the portrait captured the grace and grit that have enabled Arena to forge such an exceptional career.

“To survive and thrive for five decades in the global music industry takes courage, talent and determination,” she said.

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